The Accomplice
by seriousish
Summary: In an alternate universe where MJ and Peter aren't together, Felicia crosses Mary-Jane's path and sparks fly.


Gwen was sitting on Peter's lap, in that disgustingly meant-to-be way the couple had. She'd stopped playing with Peter's hair in shock. Peter was equally surprised, but it was Gwen who spoke for both of them. "You've met the Black Cat?"

Mary-Jane fluttered a hand through her hair, looking around the retro-beatnik diner they were eating in. It wasn't that she was embarrassed, just that the incident was embarrassing. And none of the happy, hep-cat couples offered her an alternate conversational target. Except maybe that blond guy…

"Hey, is that the Human Torch?"

"No, it isn't." Peter sounded certain. "C'mon, you can't just leave us hanging like that."

"It's no big deal. Gwen, you were kidnapped by the Green Goblin. Peter, your aunt almost married Doctor Octopus."

"Yeah, but the Black Cat's prettier than them."

Gwen slapped at Peter cloyingly.

"Slightly prettier, slightly," Peter amended. "That Gobby is a hottie."

"Tell me about it," Gwen said, fanning herself.

Mary-Jane leaned back, wishing the food would arrive. "Alright, fine, but no comments from the peanut gallery."

"We'll only applaud at the end," Gwen assured her.

Peter patted his girlfriend on the back. "You can trust her, she never lies, ever. It actually gets a little annoying after a while."

"Alright, because it will stop you from shoving your happiness in my face," here Mary-Jane vividly heard Gwen say we have sex three times a night, though the blonde didn't open her mouth, "here goes. I'd spent a late night at Jason Fenwick's…"

"The actor!?"

"No interruptions, Gwen. But yes, the one who's won two Tonys. We'd had a late night of stimulating conversation and discussion of the fine arts…"

Peter snorted. Gwen elbowed him on Mary-Jane's behalf. "Please continue."

Mary-Jane smirked. She didn't mind letting them think she was some kind of free-spirited sexual dynamo, both because it was more or less true and because there were much worse things they could think of her. Things that could also be considered more or less true.

"It was late, so Jason (a close personal friend of mine) – don't think I don't see you giggling just because you have your hand in front of your mouth, Pete – allowed me to stay over. I was enjoying the 500 thread count when I heard a strange noise…"

Mary-Jane had been banished to the couch for refusing to let the great Jason Fenwick have his way with her and oh, if there was one thing about New York that never got old, it was having a wonderful date with someone who turned out to be a real jerk. Sometimes it seemed like all the good men were either gay or dating Gwen Stacy.

She stopped trying to cover both her (apparently absurdly long) legs and shoulders with a blanket that was clearly not equal to the task. Some kind of noise, so light that it wouldn't have woken her if she'd managed to fall asleep on the cold couch, had just caught her attention. When she looked, there was only an open window. Gorgeous view, but nothing else.

Mary-Jane got up, wrapping the blanket around what her tanktop didn't cover. You'd think winning two Tonys would afford you the heating, but Jason Fenwick proved there was no correlation.

There wasn't another noise, but there was a motion. Like a shadow at night, only you could see it. Mary-Jane stepped toward it and the shadow retaliated by pulling off a hood. Long argent hair tumbled out like a building imploding in slow-motion. It actually shocked Mary-Jane, like she was witnessing a fairy or some other fantastical creature. She had the irrational and overwhelming urge to touch that hair, see if it was as impossibly soft as it looked. Then the shadow pulled down a zipper at her throat, exposing a pale beach of skin coalescing down her collarbone, between prodigious breasts and ending in a pierced belly button point. Mary-Jane had the same urge.

It was obvious who it was. The catsuit, the mask, the hair, the hoo-boy sexuality… Peter had gabbed her ear off enough with his true crime obsession for her to recognize the Black Cat right off the bat.

Newly dishabille, the Black Cat pulled out a glowstick and lit it. It cast a soft, almost romantic glow over the room. The dimness did wonders for the tacky pretentiousness of Jason's mo-durn decorating. It also revealed Mary-Jane.

"Hello there," the irrational-urge-provoking woman said. "Are you smuggling erasers in your bra or are you just happy to see me?"

Mary-Jane pulled the makeshift shawl tighter around herself. "Says the woman who didn't find skin-tight black leather sexy enough until she unzipped it to the pubic bone."

"Touché. Here, hold this." She tossed the glowstick to Mary-Jane. "You wouldn't happened to have seen a Tommy around here?"

"You mean a Tony?"

Black Cat rolled her clawed glove dismissively. "Whatever. A certain acting rival feels he was robbed at the Tonys," she pointedly directed the word at Mary-Jane as she began searching the room, "and now he wants to return the favor. Personally I'm more the off-Broadway type, but this Tony fellow has an obscenely large finder's fee."

Black Cat knocked on the bookshelf and was rewarded with a hollow sound. With excitement that was almost sexually intense, she flounced to the front of the shelf and began pulling at books. "War And Peace, who is he trying to kid? The Illustrated Kama Sutra." She tossed that to MJ, who caught it with her free hand. "Give that to your boyfriend on his birthday. It's the gift that keeps giving. And giving."

"I don't have a boyfriend."

Black Cat's spine undulated in intrigue. "How interesting." It stiffened. "Paradise Lost… found it!" She pulled the book out and the bookshelf hinged with it, unlocking and swinging out from the wall. There was a safe behind it.

Mary-Jane was getting that deep-end-of-the-pool feeling, like a boyfriend had just asked her to pick out a safe word. "I'm sure you have more familiarity with the penal code than me…"

"Oh, most definitely." Black Cat said like it was a point of pride.

"So in your professional opinion, does this count as aiding and abetting?"

"Well…" Black Cat tapped her chin. "Let me put it this way: you could try to call the cops, but then I'd have to restrain you. And that wouldn't be fun for either of us." She peeked over her shoulder at Mary-Jane, a siren-song look of challenge in her heavy-lidded eyes. "Unless you struggled, of course."

Mary-Jane's foil evildoer! theme song started skipping. Besides, Black Cat wasn't much of an evildoer. She was more of an amoraldoer. Regardless, MJ had wilted under Black Cat's gaze… though a surprisingly loud part of her wanted to stand up to that gaze and dare it to take a nice long look. "So I guess I'm acting under duress."

"Cute and smart," Black Cat complimented chirpily. She swung back to the safe. "That puts you one-up on my last boyfriend. Hold the light higher, please."

Mary-Jane threw light on the safe. What the hell; how many times did you get to assist a daring cat burglar while she robbed your jerk ex-would-be-boyfriend?

Black Cat purred. "Hello, lover. Where's your secret spot?" She pressed up against the vault door, rubbing at it with her cheek. "No, don't tell me, let me guess."

"Can I ask you a question, Cat? May I call you Cat?"

"Is that the question? Because you can call me anything you like."

"No, I wanted to ask…" Mary-Jane broke out in a sweat as Cat licked the safe. "Are you always this… passionate about your work?"

"I'm this passionate about everything."

Black Cat went to work on the safe. Apparently the time for foreplay had passed. She bent over with her ass wiggling around like it had a tail. "So, no boyfriend and you're alone in a notorious womanizer's penthouse. Let me guess… he needed a drummer to play Rock Band with?"

"I drank too much and he let me crash here. And then he thought that his good karma should be anal sex on the first date."

"Men are pigs. I would've let you off with a quick grope." Black Cat swung the safe door open and grabbed the Tony like it was the last cold beer in the freezer. She held up their prize to Mary-Jane. "I'd like to thank the Academy…"

"That's an Oscar."

"Oscar, Tony, it all seems a bit homoerotic to have all these actors chasing phallic objects named after men. You're an actress, right?" she tossed the Tony to MJ, who was forced to catch it in her teeth. "Live the dream."

"Mmm MMPH HH."

"What was that?"

Mary-Jane spat out the Antoinette Perry Awards for Excellence in Theatre. "I said how do you know I'm an actress?"

"Saw you in Cannibal Mummies 4. You were the only bright spot, besides the cannibal mummies. I had to rewind your nude scene."

"Oh." Mary-Jane blushed. She never blushed, so it was rather memorable for her. All the blood in your body rushing to your head all at once counted as a blush, right? "Always nice to meet a fan."

"Come on, pick it up, strike a pose. I need a photo for my scrapbook."

Mary-Jane enjoyed the turnabout of tossing the glowstick and book to Cat, then struck a pose with the Tony. Black Cat had a James Bond mini-camera out. "Now smile and say 'Emmy'!"

"So you met the most infamous cat burglar in the city and she… flirted with you," Peter said. "You have to admit, it's a somewhat unconventional team-up."

"Yeah," Gwen said, "where's the part where you mistakenly fight before teaming up against a common enemy?"

Mary-Jane slurped her milkshake. "Well, if you count our repartee as fighting and Jason as a common enemy… It's still probably a bad crossover."

"Nowhere near as bad as the time Mille the model met Dracula."

"Or May Parker got engaged to Doc Ock."

"Will you stop bringing that up?" Peter dug into his backpack. "Your misadventure does explain this." He pulled a rolled-up newspaper out. "I was digging into the classifieds for work and saw this." He opened the newspaper to a dog-eared section and laid it out in front of Mary-Jane. In the looking for love section was a picture of Mary-Jane holding the Tony.

Gwen read it: "'Dear Red, forgot to get an autograph to go with your picture. Call me and let's unmix business from pleasure. Sincerely, your number one fan. 555-0176.' You should call her."

"Are you trying to set me up with a supervillain?"

"She's not really a supervillain," Peter said. "I mean, Spider-Man works with her… in a completely professional capacity, of course. Although he'll probably want to talk with her about stealing Tonys…"

"I'm not going to call her," Mary-Jane said, shoving the newspaper back.

She didn't need it. She'd already memorized the number.


End file.
